In the latest report on global Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks that occurred during the fourth quarter of 2024, the cyber landscape has encountered a surge in DDoS attacks. The quarter also saw a startling increase in hyper-volumetric DDoS attacks (both in frequency and complexity), some of which exceeded 1 billion packets per second and 1 terabit per second (Tbps).
The largest attack ever to be reported took place in October 2024 with a record 5.6 Tbps DDoS attack, which was launched by a Mirai-variant botnet. DDoS attacks are becoming increasingly short-lived – the October attack lasted only 80 seconds – to a point that it is impractical for a human to respond, analyze the traffic, and apply mitigations.
Other key information noted from the fourth-quarter analysis includes:
Top 3 sources of DDoS attacks
- Indonesia
- Hong Kong
- Singapore
Threat actor rankings
- Competitors
- State-level or state-sponsored attacker
- Disgruntled customer/user
Most attacked industries
- Telecommunications, service providers, carriers
- Internet
- Marketing and advertising
- Information technology and services
The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices also has introduced new vulnerabilities. Ensuring any Internet-connected devices – wireless routers, networked security systems – are appropriately protected from exploitation is key moving forward. Cyber resilience will be essential for organizations, and automating defenses, layering security strategies and adopting advanced tools will have to be part of the cybersecurity plan as new threats emerge.